paint cut paste

this rainbow carnation experiment is one i remember from my own childhood. not only is it a visually appealing activity, it’s also a great way for kids to learn the science behind water is absorbed by plants and how it travels through the different part of a flower.

the inspiration for this post was an old spice rack i had sitting in the garage. what wonderful little vials these are for this experiment! we grabbed some food coloring and white carnations (we had some in the bouquet we bought for our butterfly habitat – all of this happened a few weeks ago, i’m just late bringing it to the blogging world.)

N had fun dropping food coloring into the water, and creating her favorite color, since it was not in the cheapo food coloring pack we had – purple!

she placed a white carnation into each tiny vase, and we put them out of the way of our flower-chomping cat…

and waited. i asked N, “what do you think will happen next?” she said that maybe the flowers would grow, and that they might drink the colored water. let’s see if her hypothesis is correct…

even within a day and a half, we saw the petals taking on the colors of the water they were drinking.

ten days later, the colors were distributed throughout the different parts of the flower. we noticed that the purple color was not as saturated in the carnation as the other colors, and the darker colored waters in general seemed to be more full in the end.

there are some explanations of this experiment online that we checked out, like this one from ehow. i didn’t find any scientific reason the darker waters would not be absorbed as much. in fact, most of the write-ups i saw recommend using darker colors for more dramatic results. all in all, we had a rainbowy flowery good time with this one!

have you tried making rainbow carnations? if so, what did you notice?

“Did you hear that winter’s over?
The basil and the carnations cannot control their laughter.”

-Rumi

hooray for spring!

oh-so-many colorfully creative ways to dye an easter egg floating around the web this year… we could not choose just one! we had to sample them all!

see our garden flags in the background?

we got out tons of supplies and started on our mission to color a couple dozen eggs!

from one of our old annual stand-bys of the melted crayon dye resist on the hot hard-boiled egg…

to blowing out eggs (until the veins in my neck burst) to create hollow masterpieces we can keep for a while (and keep out of the fridge!)

N tried it too - it was way difficult for her, as well

to decoupaging tissue paper patterns onto eggs a la the artful parent

to sticker masking

to shaving cream marbling (like we did with paper two years ago – and hey, it works on eggs, too! tip: try the darker colors for best results)

to food coloring in a strainer a la pink & green mama’s post

to botanical masking (gone wrong)

to toenail easter eggs

even some of our accidents were pretty…

cracked (oops) then double dipped in red & purple (N's fav colors)

…and some of our accidents were NOT pretty!

the contents of 6 hollowed out raw eggs dumped on our nice area rug

next year i vow to stray from the paas and food coloring to try vegetable egg dyeing. i’ve always wanted to, and have found some great recipes in the past. i LOVE the ones over at tinkerlab this year! but gosh, we had a lot of fun this week…

i also wanted to add that i was quite impressed with martha stewart’s egg dyeing iphone app! it’s 99 cents well spent for all of the inspiration it provides! (oh how i wish martha would give me a kick back for saying that!)

i’m saving some of these ideas for next year. once my neck and ears recover from hollowing out those eggs, i want to try more hollow eggs so i can create and decorate an easter tree with them since i didn’t get around to fulfilling that easter dream this spring.

all in all, it’s been quite an eggperimental easter week over here!

happy hoppy to you and yours!

last week, i was inspired by tinkerlab’s beautiful post on rainbow play dough. i used to make play doughs of all kinds frequently before our household became gluten-free in july 2010. since then, i have not made a batch of play dough because gluten-free flours are quite spendy! i’m hesitant to bring wheat flour into my kitchen for fear of contamination (i’m gluten intolerant) so i just sort of put a hold on the dough making… until now.

after the tinkerlab post, i inquired on facebook about gluten-free play dough recipes that wouldn’t break the bank, and one of my wonderful facebook followers, emily, offered up this simple recipe: (thank you, emily!)

• 1/2 cup rice flour
• 1/2 cup corn starch
• 1/2 cup salt
• 2 tsp cream of tarter
• 1 cup water
• 1 tsp cooking oil
• Food coloring, if desired (i like the wilton gel icing colors)

Mix ingredients. Cook and stir on low heat for 3 minutes or until mixture forms a ball. Cool completely before storing in a sealable plastic bag or tuperware.

so we began our experimentation with this recipe today. i plan to also try out a gluten-free play dough crock pot recipe next time, also offered by a facebooker. i doubled the recipe, and added a little sensory twist. i thought it’d be fun if each color dough had its own scent, so i broke out my essential oil stash to add into the mix.

i mixed the ingredients together (without color or scent) in a large pot until it looked like this.

then i divided the dough into five parts, one for each color we wanted to make.

then i added a bit of the food coloring to each ball and knead it in my hands to distribute the color. this temporarily put some concentrated color on my skin, but it came right off with soap. your kids can do this part, too.

because N wanted “springy eastery pastel colors” i didn’t add a lot of food coloring to the dough. when i added the color, this is also when i added the essential oils, matching color to scent.

• pink = rose
• yellow – lemon
• green = eucalyptus
• turquoise = peppermint
• lavender = lavender (though the lavender color is a difficult one to get. ours was kind of muted gray.)

this activity really enlivened the senses of sight, smell, and touch!

i have heard that gluten-free play doughs are often gritty. this recipe was not gritty at all! in fact, the texture was quite smooth and almost like a sticky wax. the stickiness was our only complaint. i’m wondering if they will be less sticky once they are stored for a bit…? we’ll see.

play dough residue = sticky fingers

when we were finished playing (and doing lots of sniffing) for today, we stored it in a plastic sealed container for a bit. i wish i had 5 smaller canisters for it since each has a different smell, but i’m not out of butter, yogurt, fresh mozzerella, or parm yet to recycle those tubs for this purpose. so as of right now, they’re brewing their own special fragrance in that container. whooo weee!

happy rainbowy, gluten-free, squishing & smelling!

when i saw this idea on playbased learning’s blog, i thought it would be a fun one for a warm afternoon outside at the easel.

N and i mixed up some colored water in random spray bottles we found around the house. we just added about 8 drops of food coloring to the water.

we brought the easel out into the sun, and embarked on this charming little endeavor. as the blog (where i got the idea) said, it is a bit difficult for little fingers to work the pump squirters. the trigger squirter (our red paint was in) was a bit easier for N to control.

N wished the colors were brighter (next time, liquid watercolors might be in order.) we tried the paint on manilla paper, and it did show up brighter and made a rather cute little scene.

N was still delighted with the paintings we made, saying “they look like lollipop trees!”

i think the large ones will make for good wrapping paper for all of those summer birthday parties coming up!